It’s Cyber Monday and Personal Capital is giving away $20 Amazon Gift Card for the first 3,500 people who signed up today. I have reviewed Personal Capital 401K fee analyzer awhile ago. It is one of the free services offered by Personal Capital which allows its customers to see how much their current employer sponsored […]

I have reviewed Personal Capital 401K fee analyzer awhile ago. It is one of the free services offered by Personal Capital which allows its customers to see how much their current employer sponsored retirement plans cost them in the long term. The tool is completely free and you can use it to check your 401K plan fees by linking your account(s) in Personal Capital.

Of course, Personal Capital offers more services than the 401K fee analyzer. In fact, it also works like other free money management tools, such as Mint.com and Wikinvest. In addition to retirement accounts, you can also link bank accounts, credit cards, and regular brokerage accounts and have an all-in-one view of your personal finance. Since I have used other services than the free fee analyzer, I can’t tell what and how much differences exist between Personal Capital and others.

For today’s $20 Amazon Gift Card offers, all you need to do is following these steps:

TradeKing used to run similar promotion a lot, even multiple times in a year, in the past. As I remember, the promotion was very popular and usually generated lots of interests, but I didn’t see any in the past year for whatever reasons. So if you have been waiting for a promotion like this to […]

TradeKing used to run similar promotion a lot, even multiple times in a year, in the past. As I remember, the promotion was very popular and usually generated lots of interests, but I didn’t see any in the past year for whatever reasons. So if you have been waiting for a promotion like this to open your TradeKing brokerage account, you probably don’t want to miss this offer.

Here’s how the new $50 bonus promotion from TradeKing works. From now until October 31, 2012, you will receive $50 bonus from TradeKing if you open a new brokerage account with the broker and meet the following requirements:

Fund the new account with at least $3,000 within 30 days of account opening;

Make 3 online trades within 90 days of account opening.

In addition, the initial minimum funding of $3,000 must remain in the account for 90 days in order to receive the bonus; otherwise, you may face the possibly of losing the free money.

TradeKing is another discount broker that I used most often, the other one being Socttrade, and I have covered TradeKing quite extensively here. If you are not familiar with it, you can read more about the broker in my TradeKing review post that I wrote a while ago. The original post may be old, but I have kept the contents up to date. Basically, when trading with TradeKing, you will pay $4.95 commission for each online stock or ETF order, regardless the number of shares involved and for options, there’s an extra 65 cents per option contract on top of the $4.95 commission you pay for stock/ETF trades. In addition to stocks and ETFs, you can also trade options and invest in mutual funds with TradeKing. Besides regular brokerage account, it also offers customers retirement accounts including traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA, SEP IRA, Simple IRA, Solo 401K and Coverdell IRA.

If you compare TradeKing with other discount brokers, you will see that commissions at TradeKing are one of the lowest among popular discount brokers. Over the years, TradeKing has won recognitions from Barron’s and SmartMoney as one of the best brokers for its straightforward pricing, excellent customer service, and free research and education tools. The following is a short video about TradeKing to give you a quick idea of what it is and what you will get as a customer.

BTW, in case you didn’t know already, TradeKing and Zecco, another popular online discount broker, have merged. The promise is that, after the integration is completed, customers will be able to enjoy the best of the two. Right now, it seems that the process is still ongoing.

If you are interested in this new promotion, use this link to open an account and get $50 bonus after meeting the three conditions listed above.

ShareBuilder is one of the online stock brokers that I mentioned quite often here. Unlike other discount brokers that I am using, ShareBuilder is a little bit different in the sense that you can only get the cheap $4 commission when you use their automatic investment plan. If you want to trade at real time, […]

ShareBuilder is one of the online stock brokers that I mentioned quite often here. Unlike other discount brokers that I am using, ShareBuilder is a little bit different in the sense that you can only get the cheap $4 commission when you use their automatic investment plan. If you want to trade at real time, like you otherwise do with other stock brokers, then the trading commission goes up to $9.95 per trade. Therefore, because of the pricing, I don’t really consider it as a true discount broker.

I got my ShareBuilder account years ago through a promotion program at Costco. Back then, you could open multiple accounts and keep getting the new account bonus, which was pretty sweet. At that time, when there weren’t as many choices in online discount broker as there are today, $4 per trade via their automatic investment plan seemed to be a valid option. However, after all these years, I am surprised that ShareBuilder have largely kept its investment plans and pricing unchanged, despite the fact that its has more competitors now than then, with some of them offering real-time trade commissions that are at basically the same level as ShareBuilder’s or even lower.

Even though $4 per investment is quite low and the automatic investment plan has its merit (such as making investing in stocks and ETFs a routine, repeated event for people who can’t commit a large amount of money at one time, much like dollar-cost averaging in mutual fund investments), my main opinion of ShareBuilder is that the planned investment scheme itself lacks the flexibility if you want to invest at your own time, instead of a fixed day every month (such as every Tuesday). In addition, the actual cost of each investment can be rather high if only a very small amount of money (for example, $100, which is quite typical for investors who do dollar-cost-averaging) is invested each month. If I want to invest in stocks or ETFs, I’d rather pay $4.95 per trade to buy shares with TradeKing, for instance, at any time I want than paying $4 to invest with ShareBuilder on the first Tuesday of the month.

Anyway, that’s just what I would do. If you like ShareBuilder’s scheduled investment scheme, you can use to open a ShareBuilder account usingpromo code 50LS12 and get $50 bonus (valid for first-time ShareBuilder account holders only). To qualify for the bonus, you must open the account using the promotion code before June 30, 2012 and make a deposit of at least $2,000. There’s no Once these requirements are met, the bonus will be credited within 4 to 6 weeks. Full details of this promotion are as follows:

You must open a new ShareBuilder account and deposit $2,000 or more to be eligible for this promotion. Initial deposit must be completed by 6/30/12. ING DIRECT Investing will deposit a $50 bonus approximately 4-6 weeks after your first $2,000 deposit. The $50 bonus offer is available for Individual, Joint and Custodial accounts only. Offer not valid for IRAs or ESAs. The $50 bonus is not available for withdrawal for 90 days after it is awarded to your account. This offer is not valid with any other offers and is non-transferrable. Limit one ShareBuilder account bonus per unique customer or custodial beneficiary. We reserve the right to terminate this offer at any time and to refuse or recover any promotion award if we determine that it was obtained under wrongful or fraudulent circumstances, that inaccurate or incomplete information was provided in opening the account, or that any terms of our Account Agreement have been violated. Offer expires 6/30/12.

If you are looking for stock broker promotions, you may want to check out these offers:

Do you want an ING Direct Orange Savings Account or Electric Orange Checking Account? Get rewarded by using any ING referral bonus link to open an account and receive $25 bonus. This product has been around long enough (probably one of the oldest online savings accounts) and I feel that anyone who wants to have […]

Do you want an ING Direct Orange Savings Account or Electric Orange Checking Account? Get rewarded by using any ING referral bonus link to open an account and receive $25 bonus.

This product has been around long enough (probably one of the oldest online savings accounts) and I feel that anyone who wants to have an account probably already has one. Though their rate (0.8% APY) isn’t that great right now as it used to be, many value their other features, such as easy-to-use interface and excellent customer service, over their rate. If you are looking for incentives so you can finally open that account you want, I still have some referral links available from my own account, though I no longer actively use that account any more. here’s your chance to get $25 to jump start your savings. If you open an account with any of the following links and make a deposit of at least $250, you will receive a $25 bonus and the referrer, at the same time, gets $10. If you don’t have the $250 minimum required for the bonus, then use this link instead. Note: The referral links below are provided by people who have unused referral links and want to share them with others for mutual benefits. Once you open your own account you can come back and share your links with those who need one as well.

Orange Savings Account Reference Codes & Referral Bonus Links

If you see the following message after you click any link below, it means the referral has already been used.

Try another link until you find one without the above message. Referrals served: 1647 (Last update: January 2, 2013)

If you want to have a ING Business Savings Account (0.8% APY) and make at least $250 initial deposit, then you can use any of the following referral link to open account and get $25 sign up bonus. That’s 10% instant return. Remember, you have to have a minimum of $250 in order to get the bonus. If you can’t meet the minimum initial deposit requirement, use this link to open an account instead.

ING Kids Savings Account Reference Codes & Referral Bonus Links

ING Direct Kids Savings Account (currently 0.8% APY) is a great way to teach your children the principles of saving money (see my ING Kids Savings Account review for details). If you want to open an ING Kids Savings Account for your kids, you can use any of the following referral links and receive $25 bonus.

Online bank ING Direct is currently offering $50 bonus for opening an Electric Orange Checking Account. Electric Orange is a paperless checking account from ING Direct. I have featured Electric Orange as one of the best interest checking accounts early last year. But in case you are not familiar with it, here’s a quick look of […]

Online bank ING Direct is currently offering $50 bonus for opening an Electric Orange Checking Account. Electric Orange is a paperless checking account from ING Direct. I have featured Electric Orange as one of the best interest checking accounts early last year. But in case you are not familiar with it, here’s a quick look of what you will get from the account. Basically Electric Orange is a truly free checking account. You don’t have to maintain a minimum account balance to avoid monthly fees, which have been quite common now among big banks for their once free checking account. Electric Orange has no account minimum, no initial deposit requirement, and no monthly fee. The account is protected by FDIC insurance for up to $250,000. It has a three-tier interest rates depending on the account balance, which yields from 0.25% APY to 1.15% APY.

Balance $0 – $49,999.99: 0.25% APY

Balance $50,000.00 – $99,999.99: 1.10% APY

Balance $100,000.00 or more: 1.15% APY

As an account holder, you will also get A free MasterCard Debit Card for you to make everyday purchases, free online bill pay and free access at over 35,000 ATMs (Allpoint network ATMs). If you want to use Electric Orange to make payments to your friends or other people, you can use P2P Payment for free.

While there is no additional requirement to join ING Direct and open an Electric Orange Account, there is, however, one condition to get the bonus: You need to make at least 3 signature-based purchases with the Debit Card in the first 45 days after the account has been opened. Once the 3 purchases are made, the bonus will be deposited to your new Electric Orange Account directly.